


a new heart attack

by trite



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Recovery, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28562142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trite/pseuds/trite
Summary: Before Hux could look at the chrono again, the door slid open and Dameron walked inside. Same time as every other day.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39
Collections: Hoelidays Gift Exchange 2021





	a new heart attack

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Viraaja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viraaja/gifts).



Hux looked at the chrono on the wall in front of the bed. It had been the first detail he had noticed when he woke up in the medbay in Ajan Kloss. It had stood out to him because prison cells and interrogation rooms had no use for its occupants measuring time.

He looked again but only a couple of minutes had passed. He wasn’t anxious or eager, but he was _bored_ ; tired of lying in bed all day so as to not upset his leg injury. He had felt almost coddled those first few days, but he understood they did not want to have had wasted resources on him. It made it easier to accept.

 _This isn’t the First Order_ , Dameron had told him. _You don’t have to walk it off_.

With a lack of anything better to do, Hux slept. A lot. It didn’t come naturally at first. There was something in his body that fought the idea of letting himself go under, get swept away, and surrender himself to sleep. There was an anxious, dangerous feeling attached to the notion; like everything would crumble and disappear once he closed his eyes. He had had a recurring dream where he saw himself peacefully sleeping, only to jolt awake and realize only five minutes had passed since he had last been conscious. Like most new and foreign things, it came easier these days.

Before he could look at the chrono again, the door slid open and Dameron walked inside. Just in time, same time as every other day. In this, at least, he was unfailingly punctual, which was something that Hux found interesting, appealing.

“I have good news and even better news. Which one do you want first?” he asked, perching by the foot of his bed

“I don’t particularly care unless they’re meant to be told in a particular order to be understood.”

Dameron inclined his head and then nodded. “Okay, good news: no more bed rest for you. In fact, the doc told me that you are encouraged to put your leg to use; go on long romantic walks, that kind of thing.”

That was a good thing. Hux had expected mockery, not sincerity. “What is the better news?”

“You get to take those walks with me,” he said, smiling. The big, disarming smile that Hux always looked away from before his gaze was inexplicably drawn in again.

“Same time tomorrow?” Hux asked, aiming for flat and maybe bored but failing if the way Dameron turned to look at him was anything to go by.

He felt sweaty under his clothes, tired from the walk and from the burning sun that had accompanied their excursion. It had been otherwise mildly pleasant. Hux didn’t need to use a cane and the bacta had mended his bones. It had done nothing to his flesh, though, and he now had a visual reminder of that day on his thigh. Not that he could have forgotten it, in any case.

“It’s a date.” Dameron smiled and waited until Hux was once again safely in bed before leaving. He had been close but he hadn’t reached out.

After another week, Dameron came into the room and said, “I think we’re ready for something new.” He patted Hux’s bed twice, like he was handing out a sentence and the motion briefly distracted Hux.

“What?” he asked.

“A longer walk. Come on.”

The longer walk was considerably longer, though thankfully not painful or awkward. They reached a part of the jungle that Hux hadn’t explored before. The trees were shorter but seemed deformed; their long, red leaves covered the ground below them, sticking to the mud and drowning in small puddles.

Silence was a rarity with Dameron. He liked to tell long, convoluted stories about things he and his pilot buddies had done, or adventures he had with his droid or all the missions he had gone on with Finn and Rey. Hux only believed half of those stories, but as Dameron insisted, _it’s true. They really thought Finn was fucking royalty._

“—so yeah, that’s when they realized they had made a mistake and it was Rey who had the Jedi powers and not me,” he concluded. He walked close to Hux without crowding him, occasionally reaching out his hand when they passed through a particularly muddy part.

“Would you like to?” Hux said, voicing something he probably shouldn’t have.

He turned to look at Hux, frowning. “What?”

“Be a Force user.”

The words felt heavy in the air between them, but Dameron just shrugged easily, “no, I thought it would be cool when I was a kid. Lightsaber fights and saving the day, it seemed exciting. But saving the day doesn’t look like it does in the old Jedi stories, anyway. I’m good at other things.”

Hux helplessly stared at him for a moment. He was unlike anyone Hux had met before. It was a pleasant and welcome revelation.

“Okay, here we are,” he said and motioned toward a cave.

“What?” Was Hux expected to just walk into a damp, dark cave where any kind of wildlife could be currently residing?

“Come on. Do you need help?” Dameron extended his hand and Hux reluctantly took it, feeling anchored in his touch.

They slowly made their way down a rocky narrow path and then carefully walked through a trail surrounded by orange, bulbous trees on each side until they reached the entrance of the cave.

It wasn’t dark the way it had looked from a distance. Small, flickering blue lights came from the inside; lightening the path forward.

“What is that?” Hux asked, peering inside without actually walking in.

“It looks pretty cool, right? The whole cave is like that. Finn and Rey found it while training.”

“But why is it glowing?”

“There are bioluminescent algae covering the cave. Come have a closer look,” he said, disappearing inside.

Hux walked for a couple of minutes and once he turned a corner he found Dameron waiting for him. The blue glow coming from the walls of the cave was bathing him in a warm and flattering light.

“Why did you bring me here?” It felt like a monumental gesture but perhaps Hux was reading too much into it. He wasn’t seeing Dameron in a new light but he hoped the reverse was true.

“I wanted you to see it. I wanted you to see something new, like all the other new things there are left for you to see.”

Hux swallowed. “Is it completely selfless, then?”

Dameron moved forward and against his lips said, “no, I told you, I thought we were ready to try something new.”


End file.
